Board Meeting 10 08 18 Part 2

001foreign school district for October 8 2018. I'm going to do a quick roll call trustee Durkee air trustee Hansen here trustee Mayo here trustee Lawrence and a trustee for the night is made in chechwan did I get that right close yeah I'm trustee Mason and Megan would you like to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance please congratulations to the flag of [Music] under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all you the time when we report out on the action taken in closed session we had two possible cases of anticipated litigation other legal code government code 54956.9 and on both those cases we would just received information this is the time when it's public comment the public May address the board regarding any item within the jurisdiction of the Board of Education of the

002mount Dale Unified School District that is not on this agenda these presentations are limited to three minutes each or a total of 30 minutes for all speakers or the three-minute limit may be shortened if there are multiple speakers on any one subject the public comment period may be moved to the end of the meeting speakers are not allowed to yield their time the board operates under the brown act which requires us to do one of three things during public comment which is to ask a clarifying question refer your item to a future agenda or have a staff assign a staff person to take care of it uh having said that if you're bringing concern to us you're not going to probably get an answer that you want to hear tonight but know that your concerns

003are heard and they'll be dealt with in an appropriate manner our first speaker and only at this time is Julie Jameson foreign thank you president Mason members of the board Dr Meyer and a special hello to Ms chaguan my former student my name is Julia Jameson and I am an English teacher at Mount Diablo high school I'm here this evening in my capacity as a media rep for this site and I'm here about an overage now overages happen and usually they're resolved quickly this particular overage is going to prove a little trickier last Wednesday one of my colleagues contacted me to inform me that a new student has been enrolled in one of her classes putting her over and when she contacted Administration to ensure that they were aware of the Oak Ridge Administration advised

004her that it was not an overage they could resolve the new student was a ninth grader and when the student came to Mount Diablo high school there were zero available seats in biology our site Administration contacted the district office to advise them that there were no spaces in biology for this student to see if the student could be placed at a different School site where a seat was available our site Administration was instructed to give the student a schedule anyway the only way to do so was to put this teacher over in one period of biology this overage concerns me particularly because under article 6.1.3.7 of Lydia's contract with the district no laboratory class will be enrolled to a level that each student does not have a lab space the science labs at Mount Diablo

005High School are subject to smaller class size than the maximum class size allowable by contract due to their small size and The Limited number of lab spaces student safety obviously is a concern when there are more students in the science lab than there are spaces for these class size limits were negotiated by former assistant superintendent Chris Holleran and former media president guy Moore in November of 2015. and their primary concern is to ensure that all students in a laboratory class are safe when teachers are forced to accept overages of students in laboratory science classes student safety is compromised it is my hope that there is a solution somewhere in the district for this overage and that you will give it all due attention thank you you know Jim sounds like Skyball thank you for the

006prom that was great very close I'm used to it's okay uh so good evening superintendent Meyer board president Mason members of the board my name is Jim Chapel I just wanted to come over and introduce myself I'm the new executive director at Clayton Valley Charter High School um so it's good to meet you even though it's through the podium I just want to also come and talk about just two things real quick where I think we have an opportunity for some collaboration I want to thank the board for their July 23rd meeting where you added Clayton Valley to the list of uh eligible campuses for the bond one thing that I'm open to work with your staff on is I know the materials that went out in June did not have Clayton Valley listed and

007the bond resolution from that July 23rd meeting that also did not have played in battle listed because it was a it was a verbal ad if there's anything that you guys have you want us to make sure we're getting out to our community that shows that Clayton Valley is now listed as part of the bond we would love to distribute that as factual information so that they have the correct information because they all did receive the mailer in June that only had the five high schools on it and not Clayton Valley so we'd love to collaborate with you on that if there's an opportunity or just a message we can pass along to our family that I think again that's a benefit to the entire District whether it's our campus which may or may not

008get puns but at least now is eligible or all the other districts that are eligible for that that our kids go to before they show up in ninth grade at Clayton Valley um the other piece that I know there's been some tension on caused both I think by the predecessor and my role as well as uh the natural description that exists between Charters and districts is some of our popular nine pieces and I would love to have that continue that conversation to try to get that rolling and get to a solution where our energy is spent on educating kids and not on adult interests that uh just take up time and money and capacity to convert a spec towards educating all the kids in the district and making sure they have an echo education that

009I think we are all fighting for so I'm going to hang out after the meeting I'd love to give all of you a card so you have my cell phone number you can contact me if anything comes up but it's nice to meet you I know it's through the through the podium but I appreciate being here and I've been nothing but welcoming Clayton so far and would love to continue to partner with you guys here at Mount Diablo so thank you very much for your time thank you George fulmore attended board staff general public I'm going to get me started on Clayton Valley High School please does 680 000 ring a bell I think I read that somewhere awful anyway uh welcome back to all the students and teachers and uh I'm back as a

010volunteer I'm at yvee Kinder this year and uh Cambridge fourth grade I love it I love the monument I love the kids the teachers are terrific God they're great I just don't think people realize how good education is at this District yeah it just uh it's wonderful to be there and be part of the whole thing so congratulations um you know as you know I uh I'm a Latino guy and uh so uh you know I followed that in the monument and test scores are out they're awful again the achievement Gap you know I'm a big promoter of uh of bilingualism and all the advantages so I don't think that the Gap you know is that big a deal but I think it does have to be explained and addressed um part of part of

011you know part of the students are an English learner program uh probably the majority are not so that's a little bit uh awkward to try to represent but at least we could have some presentations on the English learner program uh how it's doing how many kids are in it what the advantages are blah blah blah I think that's a good thing to uh go go with early in the year um there is dlac but uh to me I'll be I'll be frank I think dealing lost its way I don't know what's going on there uh you got leadership that doesn't even have English learning kids um you've got you've spent a lot of money on leadership there where's the leader we're the leaders they're not here they haven't been here they're not they're not running

012for the school board they're not representing the community um you know I don't think it's your fault I don't think it's their fault but it's a reality and uh I I've been looking for years for Latino leaders to to be involved in the district and even in Concord politics they nobody ran from the monument for the Council seat that was established there um anyway I'm not domestic because what I see in the schools is wonderful and I love volunteering I did get a letter uh you know recently it said your volunteer services to my Doppler appreciate it however we get to inform you that we are declining to reinstate you as well interior metal homes um you know so the volunteers are very uh we're in a bad position if we don't get support by

013the by administrator I guess at the school and uh I I still don't know what happened there I gave somebody a hug that didn't want to hug and you know this three years ago I still can't get back in and it doesn't speak well for the district you need a hugging policy you need a better uh support for volunteers so that uh you know we know what the rules are and what happens uh how we could discuss things if some somebody is uh you know perceives that something didn't go well so I love volunteering I love that that I have the opportunity and I'm not going to pursue it again this year but I'd love to get back to Meadow homes next year thank you thank you Denise Persia well I'm back after your vote

014at the last meeting did you think I would give up so easily majority rules I will never follow the majority even if it's accepted by the majority harming children is never okay I will only follow what I believe is in the best interest of children and is age appropriate to be so explicit in the initial curriculum for fifth grade about sex and describing it as the penis is inserted into the vagina is not age-appropriate in addition to that there is an exercise in in class exercise where boys and girls are together and they cut and paste the steps for reproduction including a step that is cut out that says the penis is inserted into the vagina not age appropriate of course I would say that this is a very concrete description and since our kids

015are concrete Learners and they have it gotten to the abstract phase of thinking and some of these concepts are abstract I would say that that description is explicit enough for a 10 year old to know how to have sex and I would believe that they're not developmentally ready to make that decision you do not have to be graphic in your description of sets or or what it is you can separate reproduction from sexual anatomy and you could talk about reproductive anatomy and not be so concrete and I hope you will modify the teacher script and the content to be age-appropriate as the law defines age-appropriate as what is typical for an age or age group so what is typical for 10 year olds in terms of behavior in terms of cognitive cognitive ability and including

016developmental ability and I hope that you will keep working on that family yeah next time too thank you thank you is that all the public comment not this time what was your name Sir Michael schneiders Michael Schneider it's related okay all right come on to the agenda hello superintendent and board members my name is Michael Schneider I have a son who's at Ignacio Valley Elementary as a TK student this year I'm concerned that we are eight weeks into the school year and my child's school has had no safety education for its students or the parents regarding pedestrian bicycle safety already this school year alone we've had four instances when the district has had children being struck by vehicles on or near District property not only is this traumatic to the children and their families it's

017also a distraction in the classrooms with their classmates and within the community this prohibits learning so tomorrow night at the Congress city council meeting the city mayor will be making a proclamation of the international walk to school day for all of its schools located within the city of Concord I'm asking the district not only to adopt the same as it is on the agenda for but to also expand it into more of an educational safety program for the entire month of October with many of the schools having similar awareness for walking our children to school the district could provide more of a proactive role in safety awareness for bicycle pedestrian education for not only our children and parents but also coordinate with the cities to help educate the public the month of October is the

018beginning of the rainy months shorter daytime sunlight due to Daylight Savings Time and of course Halloween by increasing awareness of Education of school zones safe routes to school coordinating with cities for better coverage of crossing guards and filing of dating signage within school zones to the public we could all benefit with a healthier lifestyle of giving out of our cars for a few minutes and spend it with our children walking them to school discussing the school activities the best part of this program type of program is the district would not be Reinventing the wheel the Federal and State Department of Transportation has created guidelines and framework on how a symbiotic relationship can exist within a district the cities are children and the public the information including the safe props to school and expanded school zones

019to name a few is up there to assist everyone for the past 10 years but only a few items have been adopted by some of the cities and within the district we need to do a better job to get this information out to our children sooner in the school year and that can only happen if we have guidelines that are set forth by the district this is a win-win for everyone with better communication within the district and all the communities the district serves our city governments can more easily put standardized safety procedures in place providing the best safety environment for all of our children thank you thank you all right I think that concludes our public comments so we're under recognitions and resolutions our first resolution is for red ribbon in a week that's a

020tongue twister always during Red Ribbon Week schools in many Community agencies throughout California will join together to highlight their commitment of drug and tobacco-free Society through this Proclamation the mount dub Unified School District Board of Education urges all students staff parents and members of our community to wear a red ribbon during Red Ribbon Week and to support efforts to make our schools and community drug and tobacco-free Madam president I move I'm sorry that the board approved adopt resolution 18 19-19 declaring October 22nd through 31st 2018 Red Ribbon Week thank you second I spent several years as president stumbling over it and that passes five zero zero and next we have resolution number 18 19-20 national school lunch week about impressive as I would move the Board of Education the docked resolution number 18 19-20 national

021school lunch week cute second thank you and that plus is five zero zero slash 19-21 banned books week and books week is September 23rd to September 29th it's an annual event celebrating the freedom to re-band books read Springs together the entire book Community Librarians booksellers Publishers journalists teachers and readers of all types in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas even though some consider unorthodox or unpopular by focusing on efforts across the country to remove or restrict access to Books banned books week draws national attention to the harms of censorship Madam president I move that the board approved item 9.3 resolution number 18 19-21 banned books thank you well second that is a former English teacher oh yeah yeah and that passes five zero zero it's another solution to that resolution

02218 1922 International walk to school day foreign school day is a global event involves communities for more than 40 countries walking and biking to school on the same day international walk to school day began in 1997 as a one-day event over time this event has become part of a movement for year-round safe routes to school and a celebration today thousands of schools Across America from all 50 states the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico participate in international walk to school day which we could always do better at getting information out of Madam president I moved to the board of approve item 9.4 resolution number 18 19-22 International walk to school day second I would like to say in here I appreciate it Mr Schneider's comments about this and and the way you've kind of linked

023it to the international walk to school day there has a it has a relationship but I appreciated your kind of Common Sense approach and your appeal to the district and schools to talk more and Advocate more for that safety because you're right we've had several really traumatic events occur out there on our streets so I think you had a couple of good ideas and I appreciated that foreign I am the worst vice president I was a really good board president I'm the worst foreign vice president will ever find the letter is present oh hey Denise person for 9.3 well the district just passed Banned Book Week highlighting uh that the value of free and open access to information is important in I would agree except for one little small point there is a book I

024highlighted to you a few weeks ago called It's Perfectly Normal and it's probably likely in your Elementary School library it says for 10 and up it's in lots of libraries and elementary schools by the way it's also in your Public Library but this book has information on abortion an entire chapter on abortion for 10 year olds an entire chapter on masturbation because well everybody does it and an entire chapter on IUD and condoms as well as other contraceptions specifically for women now I have a 10 year old who was 10 and just turned 11 about a month ago and I really don't want her to know about an IUD in fact I don't even really want her to know about tampons not yet because I'm afraid she might use one and she may do so

025in a way which is harmful to her um so but one of the most banned books in America according to the 2014 NPR article is this book right here almost every single year it's on the top ten so I'm asking you as a board is this age-appropriate as you designated it in your in your vote just a couple minutes ago is this age appropriate for elementary school-aged children to view and includes a topic and definition of anal and oral sex as well as vaginal sex because of course we have to be equal equally apply all the definitions about sexuality and about how to have sex with 10 year olds I hope you'll look into that too thank you Sarah zacoli for 9.4 good evening I just wanted to again thank you for putting the resolution

026on the agenda and approving it I got started with the whole walk to school thing with Michael Schneider he uh invited me to join the conversation with the city of Concord about crossing guards and how funny city of Concord is the only city in Montreal unified that does not pay for crossing guard that its elementary schools so the mayor kindly set up in a little talk with the police department where they explained not likely to happen although saddened by it I did understand where he was coming from we now have such a large amount of distracted drivers I am distracted Walkers which got me to think you think my son has been in two elementary schools he started off at Ray and I asked him I said how much time you know are you giving

027about safety pedestrian safety do you know how to walk safely to school I know you know how to get there but I never let my son walk because he'd have to cross Port Chicago Highway and for me he's only eight he just turned nine it's not safe for him but when it when he is old enough to walk what I want him to probably not why because I'm failing him I'm failing him and sadly you guys are failing him my son cannot recall receiving any structural information about um safety on how to be a safe pedestrian I think that the worst part is that I haven't taught my son he's not prepared because I didn't prepare him but I really think that it's the school and the parent that needs to communicate together I love

028finding out what my son is being taught during the week from the principal's report at my son's school because I love being able to support that I think it's important as a parent to be able to support that sadly I haven't brought up pedestrian safety too much because I thought well I'm waiting to hear from the school start conversation to give me a good starting point to say well this is what you learned in school let's broaden the conversation so I look forward to um uh this Wednesday walking to school with the vice mayor of Concord and I also invite all of you to um go to your local elementary school and walk to school with some of the students and start the conversation I think this is a very very good opportunity and I

029like Michael would like to see more um structured instruction on how to be a good pedestrian especially in the elementary school years because that's where the conversation needs to start thank you thank you okay now I will turn it over thank you there's a request for another comment on 9.4 well since you turned in a Carter 9.4 yet you can assertive sir did say yes this all started trying to get the city of Concord to reenact uh crossing guards I do realize that there is some spotty programs I can see if Concord is running but we are in talks of resurrecting crossing guards and so I spent the last month going ahead and collecting the data from what other cities have done and that's being submitted to the city of Concord and I do have

030the support of several members on the council that this that the existing four-year volunteer program that they thought was working they just found out recently that it's it has not been and um and so I look forward and getting that information to the district and also giving you the board information on what exactly those those guidelines were set forth a 34-page document but it's PDF and it gives everybody a heads up as to how far we're behind and what direction we need to go thank you for the update okay it is my pleasure to make a recommendation for the position of Valhalla Elementary School principal and board president Mason and Board of Education I would like to recommend Lisa Keck Lisa comes to us with a Bachelors of Arts from the College of Staten Island

031and early childhood education she also has a Masters of Science from the College of Staten Island in education she holds a multiple subject credential and an administrative Services credential currently hopefully for only a moment or two she is the vice principal of Sequoia Middle School she has experience as a beginning teacher and support coach in Mount Diablo Unified she also has experience as an elementary teacher at both strandwood Elementary and Hidden Valley Elementary and also was an elementary teacher in New York city so I am honored to recommend Lisa cack for the position of principal Valhalla Elementary everything [Applause] bound president I'm delighted to move that the board approved item 10.1 appointment of Lisa kakis principal Elementary School with assignment at Valhalla Elementary second you have other Elementary principles here cheering thank you good evening

032Dr Meyer Mr Espinoza the members of the board I am beyond thrilled and honored to be appointed principal of Ohio elementary school it's been a long time a dream of mine to do this I've been in the district 19 years and felt the support from everyone in this room as a teacher a peer coach vice principal now principal I plan to continue the logs getting tradition of Excellence of a holla Elementary and I'm looking forward to working with colleagues in this room and everyone in here so thank you I have my family with me today my son's doing their homework my husband is also an educator he's at College Park and my wonderful colleague friend work husband Mr Kevin honey thanks so much I'm so thrilled to meet the community at Valhalla thank you congratulations

033okay that takes us to board member reports you ready twisty turkey thank you very much um last time I didn't do a report I just want to catch up on one thing at Miss Hanson did a great job I'm talking about the career Pathways advisory committee meeting so I did also attend that we were in different breakout sessions and I just wanted to acknowledge Heather Fontanella for her great work and organizing those I can see over time they're getting better and better and you can tell she's being very thoughtful about how to employ or engage Employers in a really in a way that's really meaningful for them which is of course important so um September 26th I am still a member of the board for something called California adult education administrator Association so I traveled

034to Sacramento to participate in them I'm only sharing that because there's some new exciting information for adult education across the state is now going to be able to report on measures or metrics for serving immigrants in our community something called immigrant immigration so it's not just about language acquisition learning English but about all aspects of becoming integrated in our community so that was a huge political push frankly and um you know feeling great about that going through that evening I attended the budget advisory committee with the along with Miss Mayo we were presented with the overview of the 2017-18 audited actual similar what's been presented to the board with explanations of the differences between estimated end of year and this budget Rosary most shared information on certificate participation and that Mount Diablo received I think

035about thirty thousand dollars more than was anticipated so that was good news and they also provided some real some good handouts that I think should be shared broadly um from school Services talking about proposition 98 there's a lot of this information about the school funding to the prop that's required through prop 98 so um I'll just say that much if people are interested we can provide more information 27th there was this I think most of us were there the county teacher of the year dinner which was really a very always is a lovely recognition I think 22 teachers have been selected by their districts four finalists coming into the event there are four finals that have the opportunity to be introduced by either a student or a family member which is always very nice and

036to share their stories um you know what who inspired them as teachers um and it's just clear you know everyone there just loves teaching so um and then during the dinner two people it's announced the two finalists that have been selected of all these teachers to go forward to Sacramento for the Statewide competition and proud to say that both of the teachers were a mount battle teachers so we were thrilled to see them um Kelly Perkins a special education teacher at Glacier Valley high school and Rosie Reed English elb U.S history teacher at Northgate so very proud of both of them and when you listen to them speak do you understand why they were recognition so when it speaks volumes about that or um October 3rd was the first of this year's speaker series and

037it would happen to be on Food Services a great presentation highlighting the many exciting new practices and options for students all very focused on healthy eating and I want to thank board member Lawrence for his commitment and Leadership around this issue his passion for this issue Dominic Matthew director food services staff did a great job I bought them for us to sample so that was fun and lovely and delicious and explain kind of their new vision answer questions we had some great questions from students including students and it was a really great great kickoff to the speaker series and then the fourth I attended the first Concord High School career fair which is her students and parents to learn about post High School graduation Education and Training options that's great I was really pleased to

038see the great representation from a lot of construction building trade apprenticeship programs which is something we're really trying to help families know more about as opportunities out of high school because they lead to good jobs and wonderful careers and I just want to thank Sheila bergam who's the college career advisor at Concord High School for organizing Kirsty Hanson oh a couple of those I can underscore which is teacher of the year it's always a great celebration and yes we did score big time with both of our teachers coming in as the County teachers of the Year we're quite proud of that so thanks to them for great teaching um I also went um to our Career Tech it was our summer internship program that's really very active and this was a celebration of the businesses

039and its labor and business and all sorts of organizations that work with our students during the summer doing internships in the business world and the kids actually are sort of taking I don't even want to call them kids they're young adults are taken under the wing of business mentors and one of our biggest supporters is really John Muir hospital and I think they had probably a fourth or a third of our student interns this past summer and they take them into areas they they love them they love our students all of these folks I had a chance to go around talk to all of them they love our students because they said they're very mature and very prepped and ready to come into this working world and they screen them and make sure they're a

040good match and some of the things the students did at John Muir everything from lab work which surprised me I learned a lot about some of the areas they go into they're they're not shy about taking them into any department and the students are sort of adopted by an adult mentor and really walk through and really actively participate in some of the work there and they said our students were I said you're taking them in the lab which seems startling to me because you're doing blood and other things and they said they're incredibly mature and Incredibly Cooperative with taking adult learning and applying it so they're very safe they're very well supported and we had somebody which surprised me which is from our farmers market organization and I didn't realize realize it was an entire

041organization and how much work they do Beyond just because usually you say farmers markets you think Farmers he he went through and this is what's nice about the Career Tech education and about these Partnerships is how much you learn about the jobs that are in an industry and so when you say farmer's market you think farmers and students go well I don't want to be a farmer well then he told me about 24 other jobs related including public relations and and that kind of thing technology that happened within farmers markets it's an entire organization so the students go in these and learn so much more about these professions and they love it and we have some that have returned multiple Summers they really enjoy that partnership so I was pleased to be able to be

042there then the other thing I went to was probably the mayor's conference which they rotate around and this year this month rather it was in Hercules and it's all the Contra Costa Mayors and I went on to support actually Cindy Gershon one of our teachers at Mount double High School who probably stands on her own when I say her name but she is um really Avid in in promoting health and nutrition and her program that she's working on which is is Farm to to taste and she has CCTV involved in that and they're doing an entire program of cooking and showing how you grow the food you prepare it and you get it to students to change the way they eat she is a Shameless self-promoter I said if I didn't have her skill she

043is incredible and she the the evening kind of focused on her they always have a keynote speaker and it was Cindy and CCTV was down there and I really applaud them for her ability to get in there and get some of that funding from our local television station to go toward education because we haven't really had a fair share in education of those public government funds and she's done a great job of getting in there and squeezing them and then Mrs May will probably tell you more about CAC the special ed group and they have their meeting as well no I'm going to say that because I've talked plenty anyway this is a good time thank you very much um my first item up for my report is a little bit of show and tell

044because I was able to visit our adult education class at Pleasant Hill Middle School oops thank you to staff for putting the colorful border behind this image on this class meets on Thursday at one o'clock it's the quilting class for adult education there are over 70 men and women that are involved in this program that meet every Thursday and they do everything from sort Fabrics that are donated all of the fabrics and threads and bindings are donated material that have been given by folks that are cleaning out closets of of at their homes because they've decided they're not going to sew anymore or stores have gone out of business and so they donate the fabric to this particular quilting program the um the only thing that the quilting class purchases is the batting for all

045of the quilts and they order 20 bowls of batting if you know the size of batting bolts they're huge uh they're as large as some things you see on the football field but young men uh crashed into for exercise and they when they are Unbound they just explode because they're um under they're wrapped under pressure um so they have they purchased 20 of those it costs them 600 a year just to ship the batting to Mount Diablo adult education center for their work and that takes uh takes them through their quilting program for about a year so in order to raise the money for this program for the quilts that they do and other items they participate in the adult ed craft Exposition and holiday fare which is mark your calendar now on December 1st

046not only will be quilts and other items be available for purchase by the public but also woodworking items and jewelry other items that are made by different programs there at the adult ed facility the what I want to share is that you can purchase quilts there there will be over 25 quilts that are available for purchase as I said they're all sewn by volunteers um they are backed they are beautifully stitched and there is also a raffle for this particular quilt it is all hand applique and if you're familiar with hand applique that is intense work and it takes a lot of detail to complete something as gorgeous as this is and it's a full-size quilt it's not a miniature quilt it is beautiful and the tickets are a dollar a piece which is a

047bargain so I'm hoping that you'll drop by The Adult Ed program and pick up a ticket and I wanted to share with you every um you know we think of quilting bees as a social hour yes it is a social hour for women from and men as I said from age 30 to age 85 that participate in the program they have an opening um presentation they give a quilt pattern once a month they do typically small quilts for hospice centers and other Hospital facilities for children and adults and then they work on those particular patterns for a month and then they can move on to another pattern some of the women do the sewing only and Men I should say only at the center or some of them do projects at home and then bring

048the pieces to finish at the quilting Center here every a week someone there were six people that showed up at um displayed I should say at least six quilts that they had finished in the last week and this is one example of one and I think you'll all the the woman that's uh sitting in the dark dress is Eddie McDougall and she is the uh teacher she does this instruction at no cost for the quilting program and has done this for many years and this is another display in the black and white you need to be close to see it we forget that the math that's involved in quilting uh the stitching if it's 10 stitches to an inch or even 12 stitches to an inch is just amazing that's done by these women I

049wanted to share some statistics because I think it is important that they uh receive acknowledgment for the work that they are doing for our community since 2016 they have created 11 700 quilts 530 shawls 280 Afghans a thousand Hats 2 200 bags a thousand three hundred and fifty pillows um lots of pillowcases over five thousand toys uh blankets number 300 dolls and gowns 450 preemie hats which is another popular items for our Hospital over 200 fidgets these are small they're like placemats with things that individuals with dementia can play with they're called fidget blankets there have been over 400 of those for a grand total of uh 24 000 items that have been donated to East Bay hospices hospice Kaiser Martinez Kaiser Vallejo the Martinez VA Planned Parenthood stand and three other organizations since July

0501st they have created 450 reversible placemats for Meals on Wheels for the holiday season so if you have a moment on Thursday at one o'clock please stop by and thank these women for the amazing work they have done with their hands and their heart and their soul because it is just a joy to visit them thank you so I wanted to start my board report with something I should have done after our previous item that we voted on which is I just wanted to say a couple words about excited I am to to see her become the principal at Valhalla um when I look at her experience and uh well something that my colleague Miss Hansen sometimes talks about is people who light up about certain topics and Lisa gack is someone who lights up

051when she talks about education when she talks about kids and also when she talks about her her community in Pleasant Hill and so I I'm just so excited to see this for her she um my relationship with her goes back and she's actually the one who taught me about the tosa program and the other great things that that um are are done here in our district and so it's just so nice to see her as well as uh her husband Jim who've been such strong members of our community both from from a community standpoint but also as part of mdusdm so I just wanted to say relations um second secondly I want to thank Ms durkey for mentioning the first lecture series that we had that was a honored to have the chance to introduce

052introduce uh Dominic and Montague as he talked about not just what he's done so far with his team which his team did an outstanding job um my boys were quite grateful because they had that as dinner so they loved the pasta and it was perfectly timed because it was right before basketball practice um and the the staff at Oak Grove did a great job of Hosting but not just what we've done but also I think what was really important was sharing just honestly sharing the limitations of what we can do and some of the obstacles that we face as we seek to improve the food in our district for our students and um some of his plans as well as some of the challenges that that he and his team are facing so I thought

053that was really informative and and wanted to say thank you for that and then third um Dan Reynolds is not here tonight to talk about banned books which I think is going to be a first but um I I take great pride in the fact that in my term on the board we have not banned any books and uh I kind of keep waiting for a good challenge like I want someone to come and ask us to bail and book and my belief is that um and I'm willing to to take that on because I think that our students deserve access to information and that um although there might be dangerous ideas in books it's a lot more dangerous not to provide our students with information and knowledge and I'm proud and of our continued

054support of academic and intellectual freedom and I look forward to us continuing to to Champion that and I think my board colleagues and their support of that thank you we say the best for Less [Music] uh so I too went to speaker series I agreed was very nice I went to the um parent meeting but most of my report tonight's going to be about Friday in Bay Point we had a fire in Bay Point Friday that displaced 50-something residents it was apartment complex that burned and I was actually excited about going out to Rio Vista because they were having their movie night in in conjunction with the sheriff's department when I got a phone call telling me that um they were looking for a replacement for these families because they had initially went to the

055Ambrose Community Center which um told them come nine o'clock they were out on the street because we don't have people that work in Ambrose at night which is a topic for another meeting probably the Board of Supervisors but I was very proud that Dr Meyer called me and said that we were going to make Riverview available to those families I went and checked on the movie night everything was going well there and the vice principal Katie Coons was there holding down the Fort Lauder principal Liz and Frankie law was over at Riverview checking on families I went to Riverview the principal of review Eric wood was there the principal from sure Acres something my moon was there the principal from Bel Air had called from Oregon to say he was sorry he couldn't be there

056to support his families are um head of Elementary education Jose Espinoza was there our head of mno Richard Jackson was there we learned how to put pots together we learned how to make a space rail available when you're working with um the Red Cross but it was really really touching to me to see our custodial staff our security staff and I bet a lot of people here at the district office that were there in a minute for those families in Bay Point and while there might have only been five to eight people that came down there they had been displaced from their home and then they've been displaced from their first place where they were supposed to stay and it was just really really appreciated and talked about throughout the community how Bay Point is

057really a small community if it's a family and it's very apparent the Mount Diablo school district is part of that family so for all of you that stepped up thank you so very much and with that [Applause] we'll turn it over to Megan from Mount Diablo High School thank you good evening president Mason board members superintendent Dr Myers member of superintendents Council and members of the audience my name is Megan and I'm the ASB president from Mount Diablo High School um I've been heavily involved in ASB leadership since my freshman year in high school and I'm sad it kind of excited to say that this is my last year in mdhs but on to more important youth our leadership class now full of all grades including freshmen has been settling down and taking a more

058steady Pace after the craziness that was homecoming week um from Spirit days such as college gear day to lunchtime activities such as obstacle courses um our class has managed to still stay very busy through promoting school spirit we've also been meeting with clubs and we're very proud proud to say that we have 23 clubs in growing which is a huge approach huge improvement from the previous year um in other news mock elections are tomorrow for juniors and seniors and I'm really excited to do it because I feel like it's a great experience for students to really understand the importance of voting and it's a really great way to get the real hands-on experience um Wednesday is Mount Diablo's first school day sat which is very exciting for our school career center because our we have

059a new um College and Career advisor and he's been really working hard since his previous year last year his name is Mr Brian Brown and it's really exciting for him to do like seeing him do so much change in our school and the little amount of time he's been here um lastly title one night is on Thursday and students and parents have been heavily encouraged to attend because we are entitled one school and the funding we get from that uh from title one is really it's really important and it's also kind of what represents our schools so we're excited for that and Leadership isn't getting ready for that and that's pretty much it thank you and while you're welcome to stay the entire evening if you go home and do homework and with that we'll

060go to the superintendents report all right thank you um thank you Megan for that report and thank you to all of the board members it's really interesting to listen to each of them because you all bring your individual interest and excitement to your report so thank you um to start out this is one of our students and here she is with her Avid binder it looks almost as big as she is so I thought that was a a great um look but I love this she has the Hope in her in her face and really excited about school I know I I didn't take it but it's a great shot cutie um and and I put this in every time but I think it's important to to come back to it and um just knowing

061that um our vision and what we believe in is that it is our imperative our moral imperative to prepare all of our students for post-secondary Success so that could be college that could be career here we have our workability students and they are entering the workforce and really going in wherever they're ready so very excited about that and some of the things that we're focusing on to make sure that happens is that all students are able to become literate to read to write and communicate and to make math meaningful so those are are the things that we're focusing on um lots of things have been going on but I learned a new word this semester called charrette and this is a business meeting where um many people came together to work on our facility plan

062for the district and I'm sure we could research the root of that some other time but we brought teachers classified staff mostly our District staff first counselors principals different leadership to look at pictures of what buildings could look like what spaces could look like for for Learning and just really to think differently so our next step will be now to go out to the community to talk to them and engage with parents and students about what they think our buildings could be so we're very excited about that we have um we have so many meetings at Willow Creek and I often feel like I'm just showing you pictures of backside of heads so this time I put the front of the building as well but we've had our superintendent meeting where we worked on our

063budget and our principals got together to look at the budget and learn about the things that they need to watch out for I think Rose Ramos our CBO had the top 10 things from our audit you know kind of like David Letterman but worst so we talked about ways we could improve and things to watch out for and then um we also have had professional development there going on in all kinds of ways certainly around different ideas about safety and working with students but also with our English Learners and so we've had some great work that happened this last week with our K through three teachers in our bilingual education program and they are just the most lovely group when I left they patted me on the shoulder and said take care of yourself and

064I thought that doesn't happen at the principal's meeting but it did happen at case three and so I'm going to go back um I want to say we heard a lot about this and I think when you go from 22 in the county to um four finalists and out of the four finalists two I I truly was jumping for joy as were many of you who were there and all of you who attended we were so excited um Kelly Perkins on the left and Rosie Reed on the right this hands up in the air is the moment they found out so they love that picture and they're very excited about it really two Amazing Stories Kelly spoke of how she had a student that was left by her parents due to um one being sent

065back to another country and the other leaving them and she brought this young person into her home and they lived with her and just how that really saved her at a difficult time when she thought she was helping the students the student was helping her so that was a wonderful story and Rosie um is really championing the idea of books as was mentioned and that we don't have enough books that represent all of us that we often you know I'm I'm Mark and Janet some some maybe Dick and Jane and I don't know what came after that but you can kind of tell how old everyone is by that but um there's certainly you didn't see everybody in those books certainly not in Mark and Janet um but um she is looking to expand our

066libraries across really the nation I think is her Mission so very exciting um to see them both and we're very very proud uh speaking of proud We have a Valhalla transition and Valhalla is 50 ish and I think it's impolite once you get past 50 to get too specific but we had a 50th celebration and they found out when they were digging through the archives they're really 53 but I get that I really do I want to say that um Mart decal back here and there were so many Alum that came to the event the um from the Boy Scouts and the singers the MC um a big faction of College Park was over here on the right that sang played piano they were so talented and amazing and we had former principals um Joan

067Evans from 1983 to 1986 was there Rose lock 1994 to 1998 was there and Brandon Krueger from 1998 to 2002 and so with Margie it was just well represented it was a lot of fun a lot of memorable memorabilia and they're very excited um about what they have what has been happening and what is going to happen in the future so we've got a Valhalla Knight and I also want to mention our community advisory committee met last week and we had um a wonderful presentation by Amy and she presented on different curricular strands in a severely handicapped classes and she you can tell it's an amazing teacher and now an amazing amazing teaching instructor and just talked about what that would look like and and she did a fantastic job presenting and there's always something

068that you learn when you go to the CAC it's a great meeting I wanted to also share we talked about it a little bit on the internship celebration was it DVC and we had Mariam had a lot and Heather Fontanella kind of hard to see them in the beautiful Diablo room at DVC and um Miss Hanson thank you for attending as well it was a great event um and a lot of wonderful internships for our students and Megan are you in an internship no you're an ASB you don't have time I know um all right well didn't mean to put you on the spot I know Diablo height has a lot of internships so I was just taking a shot um but you still have time plenty of time we have them here you can

069come here um Concord High career fair um College Park had one of these last year Concord had their first annual this year and it was a wonderful focus on the trades and the different jobs Ms durkey mentioned and really exciting stuff happening their College and Career advisor put this together and um they've had a couple of great events that were first annual in the last year and or two so we look forward to seeing them established and continue so very exciting about um Concord High's career fair um we also had a groundbreaking you voted on the um Mount Diablo Elementary School field and you see how quickly it happened the ground I think it was already broken that was part of the problem but um they are there um with the shovels and this really

070was part of our maintenance and operations Richard Jackson John Wilford um we had our hard hats and um everyone had their shovels pointed in the right direction and it was a very wonderful thing and we had Parents community and student who was in the after school program there so they're behind the beautiful backdrop of Mount Diablo um moving forward as well we heard a lot so now we can see our first annual speaker series healthy children make stronger Learners um we had introduction by board board member Lawrence who talked about not only switching the nutrition and going from foods that are packaged to food to looking at healthy um options that aren't packaged and don't use a lot of other materials the classic example he gave is the Apple it comes in a pretty good

071package itself was you know bananas do as well so um and here he is introducing that and also talked about the efforts to have the water stations in every school so that is something we're going to do and up in the middle there we have one of our our folks from the cafeteria who had the pasta locally sourced all the food was it's made from scratch and we're working to have more food from scratch at our schools and um also you can see Dominic Machi who is here presenting to a really pretty good crowd we're going to look at food at all of our speaker series I think that might be the missing ingredient but also here you can see the Lawrence family we have these two Ringers in the back who kept asking questions

072like they were there or something and they really knew what was going on with the food as I'm sure you could make it because you see it every day so great questions a great evening and a great start to our speaker series and we'll have more coming out on that um last Friday we also we have so much going on in in our district at Meadow homes we have every Friday cuffs where parents and community members come together and this last Friday they partnered with Monument impact to talk about vaping and um they had great information for Monument impact to share with the parents about what what the products look like how they look like a thumb disc or thumb drive or just a little pen and how easy it is to hide them and

073the bottom picture here has some candy but they they have talked about how they put these materials right next to the candy in the stores and they're wrapped very much with the shiny colors like the candy and they had a map that I don't have shown that shows where they sell all of these vaping things and then they overlaid our schools on top of them and they are clustered around our schools not a surprise but not something that we're we're happy about so this organization is working with City councils Etc to talk about how we can at least restrict it put it behind the counter not make it just out there so um this community group is just wonderful and um thank you to principal fireman as well for her her work on in Plastics

074and Marta who is the community liaison and they always have breakfast um and this Saturday we have the Ed Foundation 5K and you can see it was a really fun event um it was um part we partnered with yours humanely and as my husband said it's only three miles Nelly because I thought I'm doing a 5k I'm doing a 5k but it was it was an easy three miles it wasn't that long but it was fun you can see a lot of our our staff came out the Ed Foundation the bottom right here you can see umiz Mayo who was who was Manning a table and I one of the younger winners of the 5K there this this picture in the middle these are the real Runners that came in in a relatively short time

075I didn't see them they left before I finished but um this group as well were the Walkers that it was it was really nice to be there we had Northgate madrigals they sang the national anthem the YB cross country team also they whipped around there very quickly the office manager at yv won first place in her age group and so she's quite a runner Eugenia they are and so um it was just a fantastic event and um very enjoyable for a nice Saturday before the smoking right before and here we have some Civic engagement you can see we have some students in Bay Point who were advocating for our bond measure that was voted on by this body but it was a large group from Mount Diablo high so we were I keep asking you

076these things I'll stop but yes it was a great a great morning and um it was Sunday so they also got out there there were 44 students from Mount Diablo high school that participated in the walk on Sunday it is oh 44 from Mount Diablo high it's so wonderful to get involved in Civic engagement of all kinds and really to know what's going on in your community and decide on either side how you feel about it so next time okay um also wanted to share it's been really busy we have parent advisory and we do this to inform our local control accountability plan during that meeting we had the regular District updates we had an engagement activity where we asked the groups and each of the theater patterns what was working and they really honed

077in on the extracurriculars Arts they got very specific about what kinds of Arts drama Etc music stem with the Hands-On projects robotic robotics Etc but they really talked about what they were doing as parent groups to build morale and excitement within their community and how they could share that with other schools that may not have that quite yet so that was something that they emphasized that was working one thing they said was in need of an improvement crossing guards that was a big topic um you know really that traffic safety regardless I will share October 17th we're having a kickoff with Concord PD at Highlands Elementary with Diablo Street smarts where they do talk about the education around pedestrian safety and they have already gone to several schools already this year but that will be

078the official kickoff they were curious about math especially elementary math curriculum that that came up and tech support because we've invested a lot in Tech now and you know what happens when it breaks it hasn't yet but they brought that up facilities were discussed in needs and interests as well as making smooth transitions from elementary to middle and middle to high so those were all things that they felt we need to work on as a system and continue to talk about and then lastly we asked them what would you like more information on they were interested in you know what happens when the kid goes to the principal's office because they said we don't see it we don't know and there's all this kind of nothing happens or too much happens so they wanted information

079on that and they also wanted information on mathematics K-12 so those are some of the things we will have for future discussion and then um I I you know a couple people I I don't think I could say what you said so well but I will mention that there were two other people that were jumping on the phone and texting Linda mayo and Jose Espinosa immediately we're fighting with each other for text time because Linda Mayo has an emergency um alerts for fire or your husband no this came through csba okay another County Board member a school board member within the county was in a conference in La I mean in San Diego and she was contacted try and help secure a location for the displaced families so there were multiple uh what do I

080want to say outreaches to identify a site for our families Mount Diablo stepped up to the point so miles and miles away and so Jose and then Rose two was on the on the phone communicating with Richard I mean it was really a wonderful effort and um you can see here if you were think of where you were Friday night this is where they were Friday night and so they were there putting up cots and they were there putting everything together we still have some people who are sleeping there we had 17 students um and um you know as you said over 50 people who who were displaced and um so they are we will have more information they're collecting different things clothing they really did lose everything so not all of them but many

081most everything so it's his apartment complex and and some homes next door so you can see Jose Espinoza um in his Raiders gear on Friday night Ms Mason Mickey Mouse gear uh more Raiders and lislin frigila and some lima moss in the Red Cross and then lastly um another Friday night this is Ignacio Valley High cheer Junior cheer and so this is one of our staff members their her kids and so she took a shot of them and so um that's my board report thank you thank you presentation and I have a speaker card so Eileen do you want to come up with the group or you want to okay I'll let you lead the way here foreign good evening ladies ladies and gentlemen president of the school board Mason vice president Hanson school board

082members jerky Lawrence Mayo superintendent Dr Nelly Meyer assistant superintendent Jose Espinoza assistant superintendent Mike Mendez general counsel thank you so much for having us here it's a joy to talk about Ren Avenue Elementary School of the Arts them and I apologize if I end up going into a cough attack I apologize it's first cold in three years of course tonight right but that's okay I have many to support and back me up because what we want to share is our success and invite you personally to our Arts fall showcase magnets night where the community comes out and will be delighted by Fine Arts music dance liveliness a Gallery Lock of accomplishment and to Showcase it a little further of our first full year of implementation and this year I have bought for you our documentary

083a public announcement about how wonderful these people have brought the Arts to the community and the students welcome to Wren Avenue Elementary we are the new School of the Arts We are following the math school program where parents community staff are all engaged in working through the art our objective here is to create students to facilitate their development as artists we interject the Arts into the other subjects as much as we can this was a project that we did based on the artist Jackson Pollock who we listened to music just like Jackson Pollock did when he painted and they kind of let the music guide their motion and then I had them on the back here is a writing piece that they did about it after we painted so this integrated language arts we read

084a story art music and then writing we are incorporating all kinds of Arts in every schedule every week so that it all connects right back to our theme of Arts Magnet our primary focus of course is the core of English language arts Math Science Social Studies and physical education our secondary Focus we want to cover all the art strands which include music dance theater visual arts and media arts and we have chosen as part of our Innovative curriculum to also include culinary arts and creative writing a magnet's art school it's prone to every every art so many things Arts programs in elementary schools have resulted in significant improvements in the quality of the school climate we could not find any negative research about incorporating Arts into your programs and so we're trying to develop children

085starting at a kindergarten don't think of themselves as an artist and someone who is capable of art I work closely with our school counselor to provide art therapy so if they don't feel good on the playground they might come on in and be able to create something so we try to provide different opportunities for children to express themselves and help them find a way to deal with their feelings in a really constructive way the more we include and live and breathe art we're opening up that creative side of our children's minds and the more creative they get the happier they are the more excited they are to come to school libertido we would be more than happy if you're interested to come and see what we're doing here at Red Avenue come on board and

086welcome to Ren [Music] please if you could come on Tuesday night the 16th at 6 pm to partake in our live event our performance if you will we would proudly appreciate it by the Numbers we know that we have hit the magnet pillars of diversity we have 128 El students representing 25 different languages 59 of them speaking Spanish so um many of them come to our e-lock meetings represented on d-lot and they truly want to make the academic rigors for their student better that is evident with the aspect scores for our DL students they've increased and I'm happy to report that they've increased significantly by 10.4 percent so Vera the Arts work integrated arts work and I want to thank you for helping up sponsoring us having the Alameda County integrated arts program come and

087show us how to integrate Common Core and the Arts and make it live Hands-On projects significant to everyone's lives so it's made a difference in our El a numbers our ELD numbers our math numbers we have increased as is evident from last year's fall of 2017 scores and attendance our Quantum attendance rate has significantly decreased by 4.3 percent students want to be at Ren they love Ren and this net this year we've emphasized and layered a new Element last year we focused on Fine Arts this year for focused on music so I also want to invite you in January on the 12th that our students at choir is singing at Oracle Arena for a basketball game and they've been practicing wow tired what happens what we call a teaser um we really are invested in

088making a better community um and is evident one of our teachers would like to speak yes Julie's now hi I'm Julie snowman fifth grade teacher and I had the privilege of attending um the training that we had this summer um the ilsp training for integrating the Arts it was amazing it was absolutely amazing um it it taught us strategies and who knew that you could dance to uh the the periodic table I mean but but what they showed us uh yeah the water cycle bringing music into things but more importantly it gave us confidence that we could do this it also meshed with our PBIS in this District it taught us and for us it was a review quite honestly about Equity teaching with love and respect and thinking about where did my student come

089from what is their home life remembering to consider that in your teaching especially when we're teaching something like the Arts that maybe they have never been exposed to before the training was phenomenal we went through course a we finished with a and said okay next week is B starting and they said no it doesn't it doesn't happen that quickly you have to now go and implement it we said what what we want it we wanted and we do want it so we have two more pieces that the first group that went through um has to take and or I should say gets to take because we really want to and they were actually laughing at us because we were just really pushing them and said well can you go and talk to Miss Lee about

090letting us do it and they said it really doesn't work that way we want it so thank you to Youth for being so open to allow us to take this training and to take this journey because it is amazing thank you evident from a parent through Damian Anderson hello everybody hello everybody Damian Anderson I am a parent at Grant Avenue I actually uh reside by across the street it's like it's a first stage view of uh the progress I'm also on the schoolist SSC uh that being said I had two kids uh a daughter and a son and I can say that since uh the art program has come to ran um I have personally and my kids have seen a huge Improvement in their academic and um intellectual I guess Freedom as he was

091saying um and um I guess just to say that it works it's a program that actually works unless you [Laughter] all right uh and so um I just want to let you guys know that this this program as far as art I mean when I think of art I think as God has been the greatest artists right we look at creation right um and I think that when you implement um that concept to kids to let them to be able to be their own guys their own creator that it just helps them to basically create a reality or give the ideas and tools to create a reality in a way in which they'd like to see and so I think that this program is giving them tools and the ability ability to do so thank

092you foreign .ndusd.org come on board visit stop by anytime we would love to show you our students because it's about them their rigor of academic Excellence there strive for creativity they're Hands-On Vigor and their love for being there so thank you thank you for your support and your sponsorship happy New Year ladies and gentlemen foreign that takes us to our consent agenda items listed under consent agenda are considered routine and will be approved or adopted by a single motion there will be no separate discussion of these items however any item may be removed from the consent agenda upon the request of any member of the board and acted upon separately is there any desire to pull anything from the consent agenda there isn't I'll entertain a motion Madam president I move that the board approved

093the incentive agenda as presented thank you thank you second that passes 522 okay we don't have any cards for communications is that correct okay so we will get on to our business and action items 18.1 public hearing regarding sufficiency of textbooks and instructional materials for the 2018-2019 school year do I like officially open the public hearing Okay so anybody wishes to address this on their concerns happy hearing them the public hearing is closed this is an action item because that's the action okay school district and Abbott for continued implementation of College Park Concord Nation Valley High School El Dorado Oak Grove Pleasant Hill and Sequoia Middle Schools college now Bel Air Monument Mountain View Rio Vista and Shore Acres Elementary schools and new implementation at Delta view Hidden Valley and Highlands Elementary School right so

094first I'd like to point out all of those wonderful schools and we have a brief introductory oh we need a vote on the textbook resolution I tried to they didn't want to okay it wasn't hearing but he said we need to believe it's a hearing and then we hope because it was what is the action the action is the that there was an attachment that said everybody said that it's sufficient yes so we open the hearing and now we need the sufficiency this textbook sufficiency resolution yeah it's a number Madam president I move that the board adopt the textbook sufficiency resolution 2018-19 that is attached to agenda item 18.1 second thank you okay that's great passes and now we're back to our Avenue you want to just say something I I did I wanted to

095say that we started with just a few schools and we're growing and expanding and we have a brief introductory this is um this is AVID video and then a report from Team Avid whom we have before us who are we we energize we see potential we Inspire students and families and each other we look up and lift we move we are noisy and vibrant we let our students do the talking strong relationships we honor diversity we expect greatness celebrate each other's achievements help one another close opportunity gaps we learn we ask why and question sources take notes then take more notes highlight and summarize our notes learn to write and write to learn collaborate and build on each other's ideas we explore outside the classroom we solve problems we know we can do anything we

096set our minds to we persist we're not afraid of failure we learn from it we can achieve and can show you proof we build leaders confident change agents we build Futures we are Avid you are and this is advocate [Music] thank you foreign so I would like to introduce Jennifer Sachs our executive director of curriculum and instruction who will guide us through some highlights about Abbott absolutely good evening everyone I'd like to also introduce Susan Hartwig who's a curriculum specialist that helps to oversee the audit program in Mount Diablo along with many many other things and we have Jeannie Johnson who's also been supporting this work so we'd like to get started to tell you a little bit about Avid in Mount Diablo now that you've seen a little bit of a teaser as missing

097leave called it for the program itself so Avid what is AVID exactly it's advancement via individual determination and really it was developed in 1980 by a high school teacher in San Diego Mary Catherine Swanson and it's really the idea is to raise raise expectations of students using a rigorous Academic Program if you provide this to students they will achieve it's just as simple as that so again what is it exactly what does it look like in the classroom it's setting up a school-wide college readiness system structured support and approach for rigorous curriculum and it's truly originally focused on first generation college students but in our system it's actually been quite an infectious program which is actually integrating throughout all of our different communities something that's really important to note is that the most powerful piece

098of this is that it's really got a school-wide approach and it's really taking a look at your systems your leadership your instruction as well as the culture so what is college very mystifying well this is a definition by Dr David Conley um and it's really taking a look at these students and preparing them so when they do go to post-secondary it's really focused on classes without that remediation so they walk in prepared um I would like to just kind of add in there to our moral imperative is that it's not just about a baccalaureate degree it's really about post-secondary success whatever that looks like so regardless if a student decides to go to a two-year four-year maybe a trade school or just become you know employed right after high school these skills are ones that

099are transferable to all of those different areas so it goes back to our belief statement and Dr Meyer actually already kind of reviewed this during her slideshow but it's important just to note that everything that we're doing with regards to Avid broader system is a way to put this into action um so we're extremely excited about what Abbott has been doing and what does it do it develops readers and writers it develops very deep content knowledge and I would also say not only for the students but for the teachers in the room having them really be thoughtful about the practices that they're putting into their instruction each and every day teaches content specific strategies for reading writing thinking as well as speaking and develops very very strong study habits and skills that will actually serve

100these students as they move through Mount Diablo and then beyond two post-secondary success as I mentioned Avid is really not the what that would be the common core but we're really turning to Avid and our schools have been utilizing Avid to really go deeper with the how how are they providing rigorous instruction so all students can succeed and so with that I'm going to hand over the clicker to uh Susan Hurley uh I have that's been happening in our district and um so when you look back in 2015-16 we had a mere four schools right so it's been growing this is 2016-17 added a few more that looks like six then we go to the to the next year 1718 we've got eight uh and then we've gone to this past year um actually this

101year right now we have now 15 and this is really exciting too uh with the help of Genie our wonderful instructional coach that's really doing kind of the brass tacks and the boots on the ground with teachers and students uh she's been able to kind of bolster even more interest and now we've got for next year we've got a few new hopefuls is what people calling them so this is a really exciting thing for the Mount Diablo Unified we're all very aware that we're in a very large organization and it's very hard to find anything tk12 that will unify a whole group of teachers and students and families so this is probably one of the most exciting initiatives when you think of in terms of something that can unify an entire District so I'm going

102to turn it over to Jeannie Jimmy John's right here hi thank you thank you very much I'm here to talk about the fun stuff the stuff we see in the classroom every day but first I wanted to talk about what all these schools that Susan was referring to what they committed to was a um to boost academic performance and we look at that through instruction leadership systems and culture and this is really how our site teams measure their success this is the when you look at Avid secondary what's really unique about Avid secondary and middle school and high school is that we have an elective and this is what our week looks like in an avid elective and one of the the um I guess the core the core parts of the Apple elective is

103the tutorials that we have twice a week we have college Shooters come in and we use Socratic method we don't just help them give them answers we use Socratic questioning methods to get the answers out of them and to teach them how to collaborate and then by their senior year they're doing collaborative study groups like they would do in a regular College setting so we're teaching them and we're pulling away the scaffolding and teaching them to be independent we also go on field trips we have guest speakers um we teach them writing and what we what we really focus that around is what we call liquor which is our writing inquiry collaboration organization and reading and that's just the fundamental um core of our activities so this this what I think wicker really brings about

104most is student engagement that makes the classroom fun and this is why a lot of the teachers are really embracing the school life um finally here's some a few pictures of what we're seeing around around the schools in our district um that college-going culture College banners College conversations and um there's some tutoring going on um the one up on the in the top right corner we did that last week having conversations in math using inquiry and writing so that was really exciting finally here's College Park Avid class of 2018 and we we track our seniors and uh as as far as four-year College attendance um and that's it thank you one last thing I'd like to mention is the um the fact that the school sites regardless of their Elementary or secondary they do really

105rate themselves on a Continuum at the end of every year and that data is actually kept by habits so all during the year they're keeping evidence um actually at the elementary level they have to do this self-reflection twice a year so it's not something that they go to one training they come back well that was great um it's something where they're actually tracking their success and how deep they're going over time it's also a collaborative effort with regards to funding we as a district do support our school sites with some of the expense and then they themselves cover some of the expense so it truly is a partnership that we're really very excited about and we hope we'll continue to expand else don't work I just want to thank this this team we're very excited

106about um Avid and how it can help transform our classrooms and it really is gained such momentum and the the club the teachers and the students are very excited about it so thank you for your support thank you okay I don't think we're going to need a meeting extension we have a motion here oh we got a motion on this one okay Madam president I moved it the board approved the contract between Mount Dahlia Unified School District in Avid for continued implementation at College Park Concord Ignacio Valley High Schools El Dorado will grow Pleasant Hill and Sequoia Middle College now Bel Air Mountain View Rio Vista and Shore Acres Elementary's and new implementation at Delta view Hidden Valley and Highlands Elementary Schools second once I get a second thank you I would like to say

107that as a high school principal I had the honor of starting an avid program up in Fairfield however all we did was have it at high school and I want to point out what our district has accomplished and that is it's now in our middle schools and our elementary schools and I can see as a high school principal that was a great thing to have in a high school but it this is incredible and so I'd like to say to Jen to Susan to Genie thank you this is an amazing growth and Continuum and Dr Meyer who has been spearheading this because I saw those positive results for high school students and that was kind of a later start which is how it historically has been so I love to just bust out history and

108do something better and so thank you it really does make a difference for students and I saw that firsthand so I'm very happy to support this and very proud of that expanded effort we've done thank you and I'm not classes five zero zero now I don't think we need a meeting extension a meeting is adjourned if we have links to sign and I didn't explain the envelope of tickets I've um presenting each of you with tickets for the quilt drawing on December 1st you don't need to be present to a win so please put your name phone number and email on the ticket and I will send it we'll keep our fingers crossed thank you you're not missing out